Mozambique is expected to have reached an agreement with VTB bank

The Mozambican government is expected to have reached an agreement with Russian bank VTB on how to resolve the problem of the debt taken on from the financial institution, the Mozambican foreign minister said on Wednesday in Maputo.

The VTB bank lent US$535 million to Mozambican state-owned Mozambique Asset Management (MAM), which, along with publicly owned company ProIndicus, in 2013 and 2014 took on state-backed loans that were hidden from both parliament and cooperation partners.

Minister Jose Pacheco said of the debt to VTB, “the chairman of the Russian bank, was here and he worked with the relevant sectors in this area and there are understandings about how to clean up the debt.”

Pacheco was speaking alongside Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, after he was granted an audience with the Mozambican head of state, Filipe Nyusi, at the Presidential Palace in Maputo.

The Russian bank lent US$535 million to MAM, while Credit Suisse provided US$622 million to ProIndicus and US$850 million to tuna company Ematum.

The Mozambican Ministry of Finance announced in February that representatives of the Mozambican government would meet in London on 20 March with creditors of commercial loans contracted by state-owned public companies.

Published by FurtherAfrica

One comment

If it was depending by me,
We couldn’t accept another debt before the explanations we need about the debt that we have with FMI and CHINA.
our leaders took us to an deep pit.
We are seeing our economy going down, life is not easy for Mozambicans this days.
Iven if Russia help us, the money won’t benefit us, but only the minority that are in front of everything.